Although my parents are usually quiet and relatively well behaved there are times when their eccentricities come out. Like when my father first interacted with Aura, Mr NQN’s new 14 month old niece. Whenever small children are around he generally pays them no attention (sometimes he does this with adults too) but he was faced with baby Aura and forced to interact with her, if only for a moment.
Adults can play with a child one of several ways. See if you can choose the way generally not recommended to interact with a child.
1. Say hello and make waving gestures and talk in baby voice
2. Pinch cheeks and tickle a child
3. Threaten with planting your palm on their face
If you chose number 3 yes that’s the one my dad chose. He means well but he is just not a kid person and when he lunged at her face with an outstretched palm she reacted as you would expect – with a genuine “W.T.F.” face. Mr NQN laughed and recalled the story to me and then added “I guess you didn’t turn out too badly after all, considering!”
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| February 2nd, 2012 by Not Quite Nigella
On the whole, Chinese people are considered to be quite superstitious No better evidence can be found than with Chinese New Year and the symbolism food plays at a Chinese New Year banquet. There are noodles which are served as they are long and signify a long life. Then there are a slew of round red and gold items to symbolise coins or money. I never really thought of my parents as superstitious-I have mentioned that we grew up in a house numbered 44 with the much dreaded number 4 which is double bad luck. But then again my father made sure to get a car license plate with the number 8 in it which is good luck as it sounds like the word prosperity (sensing a money theme here? 
).
In the spirit of being a bad Chinese daughter, I certainly didn’t go into any major money making professions-I was expected to become a doctor, lawyer or accountant but alas I went into advertising and then blogging. And when I travelled overseas I collected trinket after trinket as a gift for my parents. I never really noticed that there was no evidence of these items around the house and it was only when I was cleaning out a basement cupboard that I found a whole lot of my gifts. Apparently I have a knack for choosing gifts with motifs that signify bad luck or demons so my mother didn’t want to display them but instead hid them downstairs in a locked cupboard (demons apparently are put off by keys ).
I am superstitious up to a point. I had my Chinese horoscope read last year and it wasn’t a good one. In fact the woman told me that I would be given very difficult challenges in 2011 and it was not going to be an advantageous year for me. I was so upset that I immediately switched into denial mode. I told her that no way was it not going to be a good year and that I would exercise mind over prediction and make it a good year and no-one could stop me. And with a huff and click of heels I was off and muttering to myself what a load of rubbish it was. I’m sure she was rolling her eyes at my back thinking that control freaks should not have their horoscopes read…
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| January 23rd, 2012 by Not Quite Nigella
We were watching Hugh Hefner on television one night and I turned to Mr NQN.
“Would you like two or three girlfriends or wives?”
He looked at me, slightly horrified I might add.
“No thanks, you’re a lot of trouble as it is” he said.
I on the other hand could do with a few husbands I think. I could have a husband for doing handy work around the house (something that Mr NQN only undertakes with threat of bodily harm) as well as one to eat cakes (as Mr NQN is not a cake lover). Not that Mr NQN isn’t the most delightful spouse to have but sometimes you need double or triple of what you have.
And when it comes to deep frying, doubling or tripling is like sprinkling something in fairy dust, twice – think twice fried chips. Doubling the frying process is just what makes Korean Fried Chicken such a delicious dish. The chicken is fried twice to give it that uber crunchiness even though it is then drenched in a delectable spicy sauce. And with friend Gina and Hot Dog finishing work on their house and pool we thought what better time to test out the recipe than with a weekend day at their house with other friends Teena, Philippe and Annabel. I drooled when I saw the recipe on Ellie’s blog Kitchen Wench many moons ago and had always intended to make them but alas a fear of deep frying delayed that.
Hot Dog attends to the deep fryer
Gina and Hot Dog are chicken wing lovers from way back-in fact the last time she bought wings she bought 12 kilos of them! They have two deep fat fryers and he chops and separates them while she seasons them and he then jostles the handle like a pro. Most of our group loves a bit of spice so we upped the spice on the outer while leaving little Annabel with just the plain breaded pieces (which incidentally taste just like lightly spiced Kentucky Fried Chicken).
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| January 19th, 2012 by Not Quite Nigella
Last year for Christmas I roasted a goose. It was my first time roasting one and it brought back memories of one of my favourite stories when I was young. It was about a goose lady who lived in a farmhouse. She had a flock of geese and one night when it was thundering and lightning outside she brought in her geese from the storm to protect them. I thought that it was a charming story especially as I had only a passing interaction with pets (and you can’t really hug a goldfish, they tend to die when you do) so the idea of having a live goose in a house was something that I dreamed about.
Little did I know that a few decades later I would find out that my mother in law Tuulikki was a goose lady. When I told Mr NQN of my plans to roast a goose he told me of how his mother had looked after a flock of geese when he was growing up. One of them was sick and nursing a broken foot so she brought the goose in to sleep with the family.
I told you they were an unusual family didn’t I?
He also revealed to me that rather than being charming, the goose was quite frightening to his chubby, tiny four year old self. “They hiss at you you know!” he said. So much for fairytales!
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| January 5th, 2012 by Not Quite Nigella
Over the years Mr NQN has had to get used to me. When we first started dating he used to say “Do you have to get so dressed up?”. He is a country boy after all and there were mutterings of overdressing and I suspect too much makeup (although he was smart enough not to comment on that). There was the singing in public, the fact that I liked biting him because I thought he seemed tasty, the way that I’d enjoy my food a bit too much, the odd food that I’d make and the other strange things that I did that embarrassed him. Until one day he actually said to me
“Oh I like the way you used to dress”
This was of course after I had dressed more casually to try and not embarrass him. I looked at him and I smiled. Did he actually like me being me? Did I no longer embarrass him? Success! I had indoctrinated him into my world and he seemed to like it there (and a good thing because I don’t like having to do things any way but my own). Now he is used to shopping adventures where we travel to buy a good free range ham. He is used to buying bottles of root beer and pouring them over said ham. He is used to me inviting people over for food (he is naturally very shy and inviting people over just would not occur to him).
And speaking of that ham, this Christmas we were seeing our families as we planned a small family dinner combining my family with Mr NQN’s. His family were all over the place (their natural state of affairs being chaos), and trying to find a date that suited everyone meant that Christmas was going to be on December 26th. I had to point out that December 26th was no longer technically Christmas so I invited whoever could come over to our place on December 24th for dinner. Christmas Eve is when the Finnish celebrate Christmas and this is when my family celebrates Christmas because quite honestly my sister and I couldn’t wait another night to open our presents and our parents just relented and it became tradition.
Aura Lily
Well it turns out that all of the family members could make it on December 24th after all (I guess it was that annual tradition of herding cats preceding Festivus that the Elliotts seem to delight in!). And suddenly our small family celebration burst out to a table for thirteen…around our table that seats 8! But not to worry, we had plenty of food. My ham was a 5 kilo beast-modest enough and covered in a crunchy, moreish breadcrumb crust and then basted in a flavoursome root beer caramel. I had made this many years ago before the blog and before Mr NQN and was so besotted by it that I vowed to make it again when I had a lot of mouths to feed. The ham is easy enough to do and just requires a basting every 30 minutes and then a coating of a breadcrumb crust. It is then baked and basted to glistening perfection before being sliced up with some of the breadcrumb mixture and the sweet, fragrant caramelised syrup.
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| December 25th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
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